Wednesday, August 22, 2007

This new word describes well the descent into millenniarist superstition, new age drivel and religious resurgence of the past couple of decades. It's good to see some enlightened reaction. But why do this and spoil it with rank dishonesty:

The past 30 years or so have been an age of endarkenment. It has been a period in which truth ceased to matter very much, and dogma and irrationality became once more respectable. This matters when people delude themselves into believing that we could be endangered at 45 minutes' notice by non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The 45 minute business was based on intelligence, we now know, that was accepted as reliable by every major intelligence service:

The 45 minutes claim was based on a report which was received by the SIS from a source which that Service regarded as reliable.

Richard Dawkins is guilty of this sort of thing as well. In his book The God Delusion, he keeps making swipes at George W Bush, as though that has anything to do with his argument.

But to compare the 45 minute claim in the "dodgy dossier" with palmistry is dishonest, inaccurate and divisive. So it's bloody stupid.